


Big Enough for Two

by mosylu



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, Blanket Forts, Comfort, F/M, Memories, non-sexual acts of intimacy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-10-14 21:47:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17516432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mosylu/pseuds/mosylu
Summary: On the anniversary of his father's death, Cassian is having a bad day. Surprisingly, it helps to tell Jyn about it.





	Big Enough for Two

**Author's Note:**

> written for an anonymous tumblr prompt: "cuddling in a blanket fort"

Cassian put his hand on the lock, paused, and rubbed his hand over his face.

They’d had a fight this morning. Not about anything big. Just a stupid hissing spat over the way she couldn’t ever seem to put her damn socks in the damn laundry, it was two feet away, Force’s sake.

And she’d snarled back, _It’s socks, I’ll get them in a moment, would you unclench?_

It had ended in Huttese curses and slammed doors and people getting out of his way very quickly in the halls all day.

It hadn’t been really about socks though.

He keyed in his code and wasn’t entirely surprised to see the light on and Jyn cross legged on the bed, bundled in an extra blanket and chewing on a stylus as she read something on a datapad. She lifted her head at the sound of the door opening, but didn’t say anything until it shut again.

Then she said in a subdued voice, “I tidied up.”

He looked around. All the stray socks that had littered the floor were piled in the laundry basket. The cups with tea leaves frozen to the bottom had been removed. The flimsi scattered over the desk were all stacked up. She’d even sort of straightened up her guns, lined up on a shelf carved into the wall.

He rested back against the door. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I woke up in a bad mood. But I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

She shrugged. “S’not like I’m always a ray of sunshine either.”

He shook his head. “Jyn. Please. I shouldn’t have - ”

“It was the anniversary, wasn’t it?”

He stopped dead, his heart in his throat.

“I heard some stupid kids in the mess talking about the protest at the Carida Academy. Twenty-two years.”

He’d heard them too, and had to walk away to stop himself from slamming their faces into the table. They’d been talking about how amazing it must have been, how thrilling to be a part of history, what it must have been like to shout in the face of the Galactic Republic that would shortly become the Empire.

They'd‘ve been about two years old, by his count, when it had happened.

He’d been five.

She fiddled with the stylus, wiping her spit off on the blanket. “Carida Academy got a lot of recruits from Fest, I read. And people died in that protest. So - ” She took a breath. “I thought maybe one of them was - someone. To you.”

“My father,” he said in a voice like sandpaper.

She nodded.

“I haven’t thought of it in years,” he said. “It just - came up today.”

She opened her mouth, pressed her lips together. “They’ll do that. Who knows why.”

He thought he did, though. He’d spent so long with nobody really close to him but Kay. Now he had Jyn, Bodhi, Chirrut, and Baze, too, and the memories of the family he’d had before were rising up from the depths of him, great whale-sized things coming up for air.

He undid his parka and shrugged it off, crossing the tiny room to hang it on the hook next to Jyn’s. He looked at them for a moment, hanging there next to each other. Together.

She said tentatively, “You remember anything about him?”

When he thought of his father, he remembered mainly the crying and the heavy dark weight that seemed to settle on the house. Vague impressions of the people coming by all the time. Dishes upon dishes of food, delivered by the visitors, that sat in the chiller until his nana threw it out weeks later. The women who sat with his mama saying that it was the will of the Force, never mind that it was Republican clone troopers that had mown him down.

It seemed very unfair, all of a sudden, that when he thought of his father, he could only think of grief.

“Not really,” he said, pulling his mini pad out of his parka’s pocket and calling up some work he hadn’t finished earlier. “I was very young, after all.”

She was quiet for a moment. “Right,” she said.

For some reason, that single word felt like more of a cut between them then when she’d invited him to lick her slimy flanks that morning.

He set the mini pad down, staring unseeing at the wall. A couple of taps and beeps told him she was working on her own pad again.

He turned to face her and said, “He came into my blanket forts.”

She went still, stylus half-raised.

“When I was small,” he said, “I used to build blanket forts in the living room and crawl inside them. It was warm and cosy, and I believed that nobody could see me.”

She smiled a little at that.

“My mama would scold me for making a mess because she would have to make the bed again and put the couch cushions back. But I remember - ” He swallowed. “I remember my father sitting in there with me, listening as I told him about my day.”

It was coming into focus now. His father’s warm bulk, the rumble of his voice in his chest as Cassian sat in his lap, the feel of his large hand on Cassian’s small head.

It was a good memory. Warmth and safety and the feeling of being loved.

He blinked a few times and scrubbed his hand over his face. “Nothing else really,” he said. “As I said, I was very young.”

“Did you ever build blanket forts, after?” she asked.

She didn’t need to define that _after._

He shook his head. “Once, perhaps. Right after. But never again.”

Her fingers plucked at the blanket wrapped around her shoulders, and she tugged it off. “Here,” she said, handing it to him. “Tuck the corner up right there.” She pointed at a spot where the insulation of their berth met the ice wall.

“What?”

“No couch cushions,” she said. “But we’ve got plenty of blankets.” She hesitated. “If you want.”

Warmth. Safety. The feeling of being loved.

He took the blanket.

Although the berth was carved into the wall, it still took all three blankets and the top sheet to build a fort that was entirely enclosed.  The reading light illuminated the interior of their cave with a warm yellow glow. 

He unlaced his shoes, chucked them through the blankets onto the floor, and scooted up next to Jyn, putting his arm around her shoulders. She settled into his side, pulling her knees up and resting them sideways on his thighs. They were quiet together for several moments. 

He kissed her temple. “So,” he murmured. “How was your day?”

She gave a kind of _hmph._ “Well, after some absolute tosser shouted at me about my socks this morning - ”

“Sounds like a real tight-ass.”

“Yeah, well, they were kind of ripe, so he might have had a point.”

He laughed softly.

“ - anyway, I had my advanced class this morning. They’re coming along.” She lifted her head to look him in the face. “Hey, I meant to ask you if you could come in and demonstrate some of the dirty moves you picked up on Nar Shadaa.”

He thought of his schedule. “Not tomorrow,” he said. “Perhaps the next day.”

“That’d be good,” she said. “Yeah.” She rested her hand on his stomach. It was small and cold - her hands and feet were always cold - but he covered it with his own. “So,” she said. “How was your day?”

He told her, basking in the feeling of warmth and safety and being loved.

FINIS


End file.
